BROWNSVILLE — When U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela Jr. took a tour of Rockport with Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, and U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, he saw firsthand the destruction wrought by Hurricane Harvey.
Power lines were downed. Rubble was scattered all over the streets. Some buildings were completely destroyed.
“The City of Rockport has been obliterated. Repairing the power lines is one thing, but the power plants were destroyed. They’ve got to rebuild, and that takes time,” said Vela, D-Brownsville.
“One of the Corpus Christi commissioners I’ve known for years has an apartment in Rockport. Everything was just destroyed, and there are thousands in that position.”
At a press conference on Thursday morning in Brownsville, Vela expressed his gratitude to the residents of the Rio Grande Valley for helping in the hurricane relief effort.
“Keep doing what you’re doing. This problem is so massive and many people have friends and family in the areas affected,” Vela said.
Harvey was initially expected to hit the Valley with heavy rain and wind, but that did not happen. Even so, many cities had their emergency operation center up and running up to a few days before the storm’s expected landfall.
This is a good opportunity for Valley residents and officials to reflect on whether they are truly prepared for a weather disaster, Vela said.
“We are very fortunate that we didn’t suffer a direct hit. Now is a good time to ask, what could we do in the future to avoid, if not mitigate, the disaster?” Vela said. “Homeowners should take a real serious look at their coverage. Sometimes, we don’t think about these things. Only 17 percent of the homeowners affected in Houston had flood insurance.”
Vela hopes to organize a summit to talk about hurricane response efforts soon, he added.
Some areas, such as DeWitt County and Yoakum County, were only heard from recently, Vela said.
Vela also said that this was not a time for people to be critical of how the hurricane was handled.
“Everyone is doing everything they can to help. I think with the governor’s response (and FEMA Director Brock Long’s) to this disaster you couldn’t ask for anything more,” Vela said.
“One of the most important things going forward will be for Congress to adequately fund relief efforts like we did with Hurricane Sandy and Katrina.”
